7 Best Mental Health Exercises for a Stronger Mind in Senior Years
Mental health is a much more impertinent topic than what people make it out to be in fact, its importance is often overlooked and ignored until too late. Mental health, just as with physical health, can be taken care of with the aid of many physical & mental activities. If disregarded, senior mental health can deteriorate at an alarming rate. This blog aims to provide an actionable list of activities & exercises to improve your physical & mental health.
Benefits Of Exercises For Seniors
Exercising on a consistent everyday basis is beneficial for every age demographic. Though the benefits vary for each age category, ultimately, they all share a common goal which is the betterment of one’s health. This holds for older adults, too. Studies have shown that seniors should try and be as active as possible since exercise can help them live a longer, happier, and healthier life.
Exercising can benefit you in a multitude of ways, the primary ones are given below::
- As one gets older, their body becomes weaker, muscles lose their strength, and they also start losing bone density resulting in weaker bones. Exercise enhances your whole body’s robustness from the inside and helps regain your strength back.
- Studies show that seniors start to lose their balance putting them at high fall risk. Regular exercise helps you maintain your balance and move around with little to no help at all.
- Elders who exercise regularly have proven to be much healthier and happier than elders who don’t.
- Exercise helps your brain’s cognitive functioning and significantly improves hand-eye coordination.
Mental Health Activities & Exercises For Seniors
Walking
Has there ever been a time when you took a nice walk in nature and didn’t come back feeling refreshed? Walking is a low input, day-to-day activity with lots of surprising benefits, that is also easy to fit into your schedule.
Walking has been shown to improve blood circulation in the body, help prevent heart diseases in seniors, strengthen bones while supporting and exercising joints. The feeling of a refreshing walk will always be unmatched.
Yoga
Yoga has a very wide and versatile arsenal of targeted exercises for each part of the body and each age group out there. Pranayama exercises, various asanas, and meditation have proven to do wonders for those who have tried it and we highly recommend you do it too. If you want to know what type of yoga exercises are suitable for the elderly or which ones are easiest to start with, we talk about those subjects in other articles so please feel free to read them.
Tai Chi
Tai Chi is a traditional Chinese exercise form that involves doing consecutive movements slowly and gracefully while taking deep breaths regularly. Tai chi has been proven to help seniors get healthier sleep, reduce stress, and improve memory.
Puzzles
Puzzles have always been a great way of exercising the brain and getting your neurotransmitters flowing. Puzzles help improve the cognitive function of the brain by challenging it. Jigsaws, crossword, sudoku, and wordle are some examples of easily accessible puzzles you can try out in your free time.
Music
Music has always been a proven stress reliever, and now that technology has come so far we have access to millions of songs with the touch of a button. Music alters your mood completely, helping you reduce anxiety and blood pressure.
Crafts
The idea of creating something by yourself has a sense of tranquillity and contentment to it. Since crafts usually require following a pattern, people following certain specific crafts have shown to be 30-50% less prone to diseases like Alzheimer’s. Completing a project brings a sense of achievement like no other too. Some examples of such crafts can be knitting, origami, pottery, etc.
Cards
A game of cards can help activate certain parts of your brain that help in planning, insight, reading, and observing people around you. Thus, playing cards generates a great deal of exercise for your brain while simultaneously releasing happiness hormones. There are a lot of ways cards can be played, here are some of the games you can look up and learn –
• Poker
• Rummy
• Go fish
• Crazy Eights
• Bridge
We hope you try the aforementioned activities and find that they have helped boost your mental health!
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Frequently Asked Questions
The easiest way to stimulate an elderly brain is by getting into meaningful and engrossing conversations as that incites thinking and also expands their vocabulary.
The brain exercise proven to be the best is, solving puzzles, it increases the cognitive function of the brain, increases mental flexibility making you significantly sharper at the same time. This helps your mind maintain a positive outlook also keeping it healthy and fresh.
There are many things seniors can do that helps enhance their memory. First, you need to start by making a daily routine and sticking to it. You also need to stay mentally and physically active, this way you get to socialise with your family and others more. And lastly, you need to start eating healthy as healthy brain food is very important and needs to be a part of your everyday balanced diet.
